God Has Spoken

"Man is an insatiably inquisitive creature. His mind is so made that it cannot rest. It is always prying into the unknown. He pursues knowledge with restless energy. His life is a voyage of discovery. He is always questing, exploring, investigating, researching. He never grows out of the child's interminable 'Why?' When man's mind begins to concern itself with God, however, it is baffled. It gropes in the dark. It flounders helplessly out of its depths. Nor is this surprising, because God, whatever or whoever he may be, is infinite, while we are finite creatures. He is altogether beyond our comprehension. Therefore our minds, though wonderfully effective instruments in the empirical sciences, cannot immediately help us here. They cannot climb up into the infinite mind of God. There is no ladder, only a vast unmeasured gulf. 'Can you find out the deep things of God?' Job was asked. It is impossible. And so the situation would have remained if God had not taken the initiative to remedy it. Man would have remained for ever agnostic, asking indeed with Pontius Pilate, 'What is truth?' but never staying for an answer, because never daring to hope that he would receive one. He would be a worshipper, for such is his nature; but all his altars would be inscribed, like the one in Athens, 'To an unknown god'. But God has spoken. He has taken the initiative to disclose himself. The Christian doctrine of revelation is essentially reasonable. God has 'unveiled' to our minds what would otherwise have been hidden from them. Part of this revelation is in nature: 'The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.' 'What can be known about God is plain to them (that is, men), because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.' This is commonly called God's 'general' revelation (because it is made to all men everywhere). But this is not enough. It certainly makes known his existence, and something of his divine power, glory and faithfulness. But if man is to come to know God personally, to have his sins forgiven and to enter into relationship with God, he needs a more extensive and practical revelation still. God's self-disclosure must include his holiness, his love and his power to save from sin. This too God has been pleased to give. It is a 'special' revelation, because it was made to a special people (Israel) through special messengers (prophets in the Old Testament and apostles in the New). It is also 'supernatural', because it was given through a process commonly called 'inspiration', and it found its chief expression in the person and work of Jesus...Christianity is a religion of salvation, and there is nothing in the non-Christian religions to compare with this message of a God who loved, and came after, and died for, a world of lost sinners. God has spoken. God has acted. The record and interpretation of these divine words and deeds is to be found in the Bible. And there for many people they remain. As far as they are concerned, what God has said and done belongs to past history; it has not yet come out of history into experience, out of the Bible into life. God has spoken; but have we listened to his word? God has acted; but have we benefited from what he has done?...God has sought us. He is still seeking us. We must seek him." (John Stott. Basic Christianity. London: Inter-Varsity Press, 1958. 12-16).